Jack 1: Down in the dumps day

In a grey room, in a cold, old house, one black, windy, winter night, Jack
lay dreaming and crying. On his eighth birthday. His mother heard. She came upstairs and
sat by his bed, stroking his hair.

"Darling," she said, "I
know it's been hard since daddy died. I miss him too, and I know you do, as
much as I."

"Oh, mum," Jack replied. "Why has everything become so hard? Why
can't we do the things we used to do? We were so happy!"

"I know, darling. We can't afford the life we had. We're living on dad's
pension, plus what I can make in the supermarket. It's less than half of what
we used to get. It's so sad."

"It's not the money, mum. I just feel as if, well, the fun's gone."

"I know. It has. And don't think I don't know how awful it is on
birthdays. Your sister Jen feels the same. But at least we have our health and
our love."

"That's all very well, but no fun....."

"I know. No holidays, no good times, nothing."

"Oh, mum, now you're sounding worse than me."

And he sat up and gave her a big hug.

That tore it. She couldn't hold back. He felt her sobs, and of course, that set
him off too.

Then he looked at her and smiled. "Aren't we soppy, mum? This isn't going
to help, is it?"

"No, but we're not heroes. It is tough. Anyway, enough. I'm tired. I've
got to start work early tomorrow, and you're starting a new year at school.
Good night, Jack." She kissed the top of his head and hugged him

"Good night, mum." He pushed
his face into the pillow as she turned off the light.

But he couldn't sleep. He lay wide awake. He was cold, even though he wore a
pullover over his pyjamas. Since his dad had died, his mum turned the heating
down low at night to save money. He tried to count sheep, but the shepherd
standing behind them had his dad's face. So the sheep went and it was just bare
numbers, to which he breathed in time. He could feel his body starting to relax
at last, his eyes spending more time shut, when he heard a small sound, like a
cat scratching, at the window.

At first he wasn't sure. He thought it might be a branch moving on the tree
outside. But the scratching noise kept returning. He looked over towards the
window, where the thick curtains let in hardly any light. The orange street
light showed from time to time, when the wind managed to get through the cracks
at the side of the window, to blow the curtain out slightly. For several
minutes he looked, and was sure that he could see another colour showing every
now and then. It was a kind of green. But he couldn't be sure. He got up, put
his slippers on, wrapped himself in his blue duvet, and went over to the
window. Half afraid, he opened the curtain slightly, and jumped back.

There was a little animal there. He couldn't see what it was. Nothing that he
recognised.

He took a deep breath, thought to himself, "Well, things can't be much
worse, I mustn't be scared." He returned to the curtain, opened it again,
and took a good look. He realised what it was. It was a miniature dragon. It
smiled at him.

Now I don't know if you've ever seen a dragon smile, but it's not the nicest
sight. Why? Because that's when you can see their sharp, white teeth and their
little snaky forked tongue slipping in and out of their mouth. Dragons think
they're smiling, of course, but when they're big and they smile, you can
understand why grown, strong, men run away. That's not to mention the smell of
their breath, which can be pretty foul if they've eaten a few sheep lately,
because the sheep stay rotting in their stomach for a few days while they are
thoroughly digested.

But this dragon was so small that even though the smile didn't look too
friendly and the smell was bit ripe, the rest of the dragon did look friendly. It
was something about the way the dragon cosied up to the window rather than
trying to smash it. The dragon scraped his wing against the window, and Jack
recognised the sound. The dragon clearly wanted to come in. So Jack opened the
window and the dragon flew in.

"Brrrr", it said. Not a night to be out and about, even though we
have our own built in central heating. But I was running out of gas."

The dragon was mostly a mixture of dark and light green, with a bright red
patch on the top of its head, and a red breast. A bit like a scaly robin.
Except that it had a forked tail that was twice as long as its body. Except
that it had two horns sticking out of its head just above its pointed ears.
Except that it had bat wings, green with red veins.

"Who are you? Or rather, what are you?" asked Jack "I guess you
are a dragon, aren't you."

"Ten out of ten for brilliance," answered the dragon. "Yes,
you've got the animal type right, but I bet you can't guess my name!"

It smiled again. Luckily, Jack was getting used to that smile and the smell
that came with it.

Jack thought for a bit. "That's unfair! You could be called anything. I
don't even know whether you're a boy or a girl!"

"Actually, I'm a boy, but I could have been a girl tonight. We dragons can
change, you know."

"Oh, I get it," said Jack, "You're here because your life is
full of bad days and you've come here because you've found someone who feels
worse than you. Me!"

"Exactly the opposite," said 4D. "We've been watching you from
Cloud 9, where we live. We thought you needed some warming up and some cheering
up."

"There's nothing you can do to make me feel better," said Jack,
folding his arms and sticking out his tongue. "I feel rotten because I've
lost my dad. And because my mum and sister are so sad. And because we're short
of money. And because my room's cold, and..." He stopped. He realised he
was sounding like a baby. "I bet you've never had anything like that in
your life."

"Don't you believe it," replied 4D. "In fact, I lost both my
dads last year."

"What do you mean?" asked Jack, "Both your dads? That doesn't
make sense.

"Well, I did tell you, one of them used to be my mum."

"Oh, I get it," Jack said. But he didn't.

"How did they die?"

"Well, when dragons reach the age of five thousand, they disappear into a
puff of smoke, and that's what they did last year. Dragons have to marry people
exactly their own age, so they can go together."

"Oh dear."

"No, it's not sad, they had a good life, and we all knew when it would
happen. We all gathered round to watch the spectacle."

"That's nice."

"Yes.... Anyway, to get back to my name. My job is to help children who
have down in the dumps days. They're usually followed by seriously sad sleeps,
or even no sleep. So I come and cheer them up."

"Well you could start by warming me up."

"Ah, that at least is no problem for a dragon, particularly now that I'm
not using up all my gas trying to keep myself warm."

And 4D went to one side of the room and carefully pointed his mouth into the
middle of the room and threw a blue and yellow flame right across the room,
keeping it low so as not to burn the lampshade, and just short enough to make
sure that the wallpaper didn't catch fire. It wasn't long before the room was
as warm as toast. Jack put the duvet back onto the bed, and soon he took his
jumper off as well.

"OK," said 4D. "Time for my next trick."

And before Jack could say anything, 4D emitted a series of gigantic puffs of
smoke. The room filled, but it wasn't the kind of smoke that made you cough,
more like steam. And when it cleared, the room was full of Jack's friends, and tables
loaded with birthday party food, sausages on sticks, miniature pies, crisps,
jellies, chunks of chocolate and glasses of fizz. And in the centre was an
enormous chocolate birthday cake with eight candles on it, already burning
brightly.

Everyone wore party hats, and once the smoke had completely cleared, they all
started to sing Happy Birthday.

Jack turned to 4D. "You are a star!"

"No, a dragon. But we do live near to a star, though Cloud 9 isn't one of
your earth clouds. It's a sun cloud. We can't afford to let our work be
affected by the weather, particularly in your country. We'd get lost finding
our way home among all the other clouds."

"I can believe that," said Jack.

"Anyway, it's time for me to go. And time for you to sleep."

And before Jack could say anything, 4D puffed out another enormous cloud, and
when it disappeared, all his friends had gone and he was alone n his bedroom
again. Jack started to feel sad again, but 4D looked at him sternly.

"No more tears, please. Just remember, we're here to look after you. My
friends and I are keeping a watch. You can rely on us. But we're only human.

"Very funny!"

"Actually, no, we're not. Some of us are, some half and some not. But we
like to help people who get better after we help them, not ones who just go on
getting worse. There aren't many of them, because we're such brilliant
helpers."

"Poor them."

"Well - I'm letting you into a secret here. We've got special ways of
dealing with people who LIKE to be down in the dumps. But you're not one of
them, are you?"

"No, of course not," said Jack, though he was beginning to wonder.

"Just remember, when things go wrong, we'll be watching. Every now and
then, one of us will come to help."

"Wow, does that mean if I'm feeling rotten, you'll always come?"

"We're not that stupid. We know when someone's putting it on!"

Jack felt slightly ashamed that he'd given his thinking away so easily.

4D was already on the window sill. "Byeee....." he called as he flew
out.